Cray Kitchen & Bar, Vancouver (Mount Pleasant) | Get Cray Crawfish

That –Ish Cray! First we had Jay-Z and Kanye West to play on words and boggle our minds. Now we have Cray Kitchen & Bar to intrigue your tastebuds and bring you back to your childhood when you ate with your hands. This place is meant to be messy. Please do not come in your Sunday’s best or anything white for that matter. Paper towels, bibs and gloves are provided. We didn’t even bother with gloves because it’s only gonna get in your way. Besides it’s not that hard to pop into the washroom and wash my hands afterwards.

Before I start… Just get the garlic butter shrimps and corn! I also love how they have Sapporo on tap.

So what are these weird looking, miniature lobsters? These Louisiana Crawfish have a head to tail ratio 3:1 – there really isn’t a lot of meat. But, it was really fun to destroy and break the heads and peel and tear them apart. The meat in the tiny claws were also a battle to dig out. In the end, most of the weight you’re paying for comes from the shell. Was it worth it? It was certainly a fun experience! But the Crawfish was just meh.

As much as I enjoy sucking the brains out of shrimps and eating the glops from crab shells, the heads of these crawfish were really fishy! The roe were hard and not very pleasant. The meat wasn’t very bouncy as I would imagine a baby lobster to be. I’m sure it was fresh. It’s just the type of species their texture is different.

Cray offers various flavours in cajun, garlic butter, lemon butter, or cray mix (which is a mix of all the seasonings) with different levels of heat. We of course got Cray mix in spicy because it’s a great way to try everything but after a while, it’s hard to tell which is which aside from the garlic butter (much to do with lil garlic bits).

All the seafood came in plastic bags. It’s interesting, perhaps this helped to better seal in the heat and juices. But what happened to BPA and don’t leave your plastic bottles in direct sunlight / heat? Would some chemist please help explain this?

The stars of this meal were the added corn: half cob for 50 cents. Delicious as it soaked up all the sauce and juicy essence. Well worth half my loonie.

Now back to the garlic butter shrimps.

The shrimps were of a fair size. They were juicy, moist and bouncy. Soaking in all the garlic butter. It was delicious. The shrimps were much more enjoyable than the cray crawfish.

Remember Yelpers, if it’s your first check-in, there is a free Cajun Fries with min $5 purchase. The fries were crispy, crunchy and golden seasoned with Cajun pepper. A great deal for a full size grab!

Now the only veggies you would probably find here would be their house made slaw. Pretty tangy and tasty and the veggies gave a nice crunch with every bite.

After the massacre…

Cray Kitchen and Bar is located on Main Street, diagonally from Foundations and a few steps away from Nice Cafe and Gene Café. Cray serves up Louisiana style cuisine. Crawfish, shrimps, crab, lobster and oysters are served by the pound in plastic baggies. Since all the weight comes from the shells, I beg to argue the bang for your buck. For 10.99/pound I much rather order a Atlantic lobster at any Chinese restaurant. Pound for a pound, I would be more satisfied…

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Meet Nancy

Nancy is a finance professional by trade and has an eye for passion.
She is the writer, stylist, photographer and foodie based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
This new Mommy also runs a Baby / Lifestyle Blog Hello Nance .
Her work has been featured on SELF Magazine, ClassPass, National Post, Yellow Pages, Groupon, and SocialShoppers.